Many times our occupations to generate income and financially support our family, take us a little away from our children, specifically when they are in the initial stage of school. Some parents entrust all education to the experience of teachers, because they are supposed to be prepared to teach and nurture the knowledge that will make them progress at different levels of education.
Undoubtedly, the education of children should not only refer to the school or teachers. However, in many cases we only focus on repetitive tasks or activities that keep children occupied, always with the simple intention that they do not bother us.
There are parents who do not care at all about the education of children, and although they have the opportunity to reinforce this knowledge or take advantage of it to guide them better, they simply leave them alone (as far as education is concerned).
I have two children in particular, and as a university professor I have always been concerned that they correctly assimilate what they learned in school, of course, this attitude was for two reasons,
first reinforcing them and helping them to better understand what they learn and
secondly the pride that I feel when I receive the congratulations from the teachers, not for being a good father but for having "intelligent" children, hehe!
In these lines, I will describe one of the initial techniques that I applied to reinforce the learning of my children, simply with a small and simple game. It should be noted that at an early age children feel uncomfortable, want to run, jump, scream (huy!) And we must allow them the moment when I call it infantile de-stressing.
There is always just a moment of calm, tranquility, visits to the doctor's office, dentist, church, concerts or any other activity that at an early age causes discomfort in children that can create very uncomfortable situations for us adults. So, will it be that we start running, shout for de-stress, or better, do we try to keep them busy? And that is where I can apply my game, and I comment simply for those new parents who will go through similar situations and will be able to remember this experience that I am going to comment on, of which more than 20 years have passed since I applied it for the first time, and even now it works with my nephews.
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The game is simple, and I am almost certain that many parents have used it. It consists of creating a challenge, but not that of the game of truth or challenge, this is a challenge of knowledge, which will lead them to be seekers, simply by means of answers to different questions, but with particular rules that we will apply according to the environment in which we let's find. One of the rules used for example when we were in medical consultation was that they could not get away from their seat more than 1 meter away, with this first strategy, the knowledge of measures is reinforced since I could tell them instead of a meter , do not go further than 2 steps too. The correct answers to each question will accumulate points that could later be converted into a reward
So, what did I ask? Simple, depending on the educational level in which they were, they asked questions about numbers, colors, geometric figures, words, among others, something that kept them occupied for a moment, for example, where is the number 1? Of course I kept him busy while they found in which part of the waiting room that number was located.
When the game could get a little annoying, it located a search a little harder to find and additionally stimulated them with new rules that implied diminishing the score to both if none answered the location of what was sought. Also to make it a bit funny for them, when they were very interested in looking and finding, in all possible places like walls, chairs, objects, I asked them for a color number letter or shape that was on their clothes, and when not They could find it, give them small clues until they got it.
Imagine their expression when they discovered that the answer was in themselves.
This simple game, served to reinforce some school knowledge and to know what could be its shortcomings. This strategy made them more observant, more detail oriented and, better yet, kept them busy and quiet when required. As the school progressed, the searches were complemented by new learning, such as where the number obtained by multiplying 3x5 was found, or where the color obtained by combining yellow and blue was found, and so on.
I developed the searches with additional questions that required a little more mental effort.
Of course, children are always in continuous learning, so you have to let them rest a little educational activities, if this strategy is applied every day, it would become a bit tedious, so I only used it at specific times. Sometimes they spent weeks without playing and take advantage of the moments when we traveled in the vehicle at medium or long distances. And as a special challenge and when they were older, they accumulated the scores between games and games in order to obtain a better reward.
I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you about this experience in the reinforcement of knowledge and in the calm distraction that a child can have, because this week, after several years of not using it, I had to take care of a niece and when she was about to feel Uneasy, I remembered the game that I just commented and let me tell you that it was a total success, we were busy and distracted for more than 60 minutes, of course, the responsibility of awarding the prize is in the hands of his parents, hehe!
